Lessons for progressing narrative reporting: Learning from the experience of disseminating the Danish Intellectual Capital Statement approach

TY - JOUR

T1 - Lessons for progressing narrative reporting

T2 - Learning from the experience of disseminating the Danish Intellectual Capital Statement approach

AU - Roslender, Robin

AU - Nielsen, Christian

PY - 2017/9

Y1 - 2017/9

N2 - The case for the greater use of narrative disclosures within the annual report package continues to attract support from accounting academics. After a decade of comparatively limited attention, the topic of narrative reporting has returned to the accounting research agenda, in part in association with integrated reporting and a growing interest in accounting for business models, as well as a resurgence of intellectual capital research. In the light of a continuing optimism that narrative reporting will eventually assume its rightful place within financial reporting, the paper reports and reflects upon the findings of a study of the outcome of the Danish Guideline Project in the decade following its conclusion in late 2002. This initiative placed a heavy emphasis on the extension of narrative reporting in its principal output, the Intellectual Capital Statement, still widely regarded as a highly promising intellectual capital reporting framework. Based on insights derived from the study, the paper identifies a number of major obstacles that confront the advocates of narrative disclosure practices, the persistence of which is rooted in the contestable jurisdiction that characterises the accountancy profession itself.

AB - The case for the greater use of narrative disclosures within the annual report package continues to attract support from accounting academics. After a decade of comparatively limited attention, the topic of narrative reporting has returned to the accounting research agenda, in part in association with integrated reporting and a growing interest in accounting for business models, as well as a resurgence of intellectual capital research. In the light of a continuing optimism that narrative reporting will eventually assume its rightful place within financial reporting, the paper reports and reflects upon the findings of a study of the outcome of the Danish Guideline Project in the decade following its conclusion in late 2002. This initiative placed a heavy emphasis on the extension of narrative reporting in its principal output, the Intellectual Capital Statement, still widely regarded as a highly promising intellectual capital reporting framework. Based on insights derived from the study, the paper identifies a number of major obstacles that confront the advocates of narrative disclosure practices, the persistence of which is rooted in the contestable jurisdiction that characterises the accountancy profession itself.

KW - Business reporting

KW - Danish Guideline Project

KW - Integrated reporting

KW - Intellectual capital

KW - Intellectual capital statements

KW - Narrative reporting

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85021778946

U2 - 10.1016/j.accfor.2017.06.002

DO - 10.1016/j.accfor.2017.06.002

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85021778946

SN - 0155-9982

VL - 41

SP - 161

EP - 171

JO - Accounting Forum

JF - Accounting Forum

IS - 3

ER -